By Steve Holland and James Oliphant
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will headline a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, creating a high-profile spectacle aimed at generating media buzz in a state that he is likely to lose on Nov. 5.
U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, who is supporting Trump’s reelection bid with his X social media platform and enormous wealth, will be among the featured speakers, the Trump campaign announced.
Trump, a New York celebrity for decades, will use the event at the iconic venue known for Knicks games and Billy Joel concerts to deliver his closing argument against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We want to close it out with a beautiful bang,” he said last week.
Polls show the rival candidates are neck and neck with just over a week until Election Day. More than 38 million votes have already been cast.
Trump has been seeking to tie Harris to the Biden administration’s handling of immigration and the economy. Last week, Trump debuted a new attack line: “She broke it, and I promise you I will fix it.”
Harris will kick off her own appeal to last-minute voters with a speech on Tuesday on the National Mall in Washington, where she will try to sharply draw a contrast between herself and Trump.
A Republican presidential candidate has not won the state of New York since Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984. Democratic President Joe Biden won the state by 23 percentage points in 2020, and a Siena College poll this week found Harris leading Trump by 19 points, 58% to 39%.
But Trump, who held a rally in Long Island, New York in September, has said he is making a play for the state.
‘SHOW OF STRENGTH’
By staging the attention-grabbing event in the world’s biggest media market, Trump could help boost Republican candidates in New York congressional races. The state has seven competitive seats that could help determine whether the party holds on to the U.S. House of Representatives next year.
It could also give Trump a boost in nearby northeastern Pennsylvania, a battleground state that has increasingly become home for New York commuters.
Trump’s campaign said the event at the 19,500-seat arena, which can cost upwards of $1 million to rent, was sold out.
“This is an attempt by Trump to dominate the headlines in the final days of the election,” said Republican strategist Ryan Williams. “He has a flair for the dramatic. I think he wants to have a show of strength with a stadium full of people.”
A crowd of some 30,000 people attended Harris’ rally with superstar singer Beyonce on Friday night in Houston.
Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, has accused him of “re-enacting” a pro-Nazi rally that was held at the Garden in 1939 on the eve of World War Two. Trump’s critics have long accused him of empowering white supremacists through his dehumanizing and racist rhetoric.
Her comments drew a rebuke from Trump and Republican leaders.
“She said it’s just like the 1930s. No, it’s not,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan on Friday. “This is called Make America Great Again, that’s all this is.”
Republicans Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, issued a joint statement saying Clinton’s rhetoric “risks inviting yet another would-be assassin” to target Trump and “endangers” American lives.
Other speakers at the Sunday event include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former independent presidential candidate who dropped out of the race and backed Trump, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, and Howard Lutnick, who is chairman and CEO of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chair of the Trump White House transition team.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X, has traveled across Pennsylvania on Trump’s behalf and has given $119 million to his pro-Trump spending group that is helping turn out voters in the most closely contested states.
The group, America PAC, is also giving away $1 million per day to randomly selected registered voters in battleground states who sign its online petition. The Justice Department has sent a letter to America PAC warning that the giveaways may violate federal law, CNN reported.
(Reporting By Steve Holland and James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Andrea Ricci)
